


The Dwarven Affair

by NeumeIndil



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Adultery, Angst, Divorce, F/M, Het, The Stubbornness of Dwarves, What-If, dramadramadrama, woe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 05:38:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3638808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeumeIndil/pseuds/NeumeIndil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin Oakenshield is king and the ruins of Belegost in Eriador serve to shelter his people. But his sister's childhood friend Bas finds that the prosperous life they had hoped for when they settled there is not without its confusions and heartbreaks. (Setting: T.A. 2859 and beyond through the War of the Ring.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. T.A. 2859, an evening in autumn

**Author's Note:**

> Few names are given of dwarves outside those of the Company and the house of Durin. Of the characters used here, I've fabricated a couple of names based on my understanding of the language. Dili is Dis' husband, father of Fili and eventually Kili. Bas, too, is a fabricated name, as Dis is the only named female dwarf in all the HoME. Forgive my best guesses should they be off the mark.

Bas sat quietly, edged back into the shadows of a support pillar in the feasting hall. While competition for their attentions had always been fierce, her friendship with Dis told her that tonight, her friend needed her simply to be patient, and bide time.

They had married, Bas and her childhood friend, within a year of each other-- five years ago now, and had chambers across the corridor in the lower level of the habitat wing. As the only girls their age in the settlement in the Blue Mountains, they had naturally been thrust together often, compared and contrasted, encouraged to be competitive and creative, to out-think the other whenever they could. And like gems, under that constant pressure, they had grown crystalline and beautiful. Dis, the rare pale diamond in a sea of dark hair and beards, Bas a garnet, more commonly-colored, with the kiss of ruby flame. Dis had a quiet, thoughtful way and was quick to jest or play a prank, though when loosed, her temper was legend. Her strengths were in organization, and she wrote a flawless hand. She was most often employed in the counting rooms, keeping books for her father Thrain and some few other dwarves as paid for the help.

Bas was bolder, outspoken, meeting all of the boys and half of the men they encountered daily head on, eye to eye. Being shorter than most of them was no deterrent in the least, for she found that a strong front required less fighting and tolerance for weaker individuals down the line. Being one of the few dwarf women-- even before she was fully a woman-- had its advantages. She was, by default, put in charge of the assay offices, and her opinions of the stones and coins that came into their realm were never challenged-- anymore. If a coin were a hundredthweight short, Bas knew it, and her eye was keen enough to find the most minute flaw in a gem, raw or uncut. It made her suspicious, her father had always said, taught her to always look for the worst and see problems instead of joys.

He had died the previous winter of an illness in the chest. She missed him painfully.

It was no wonder, then, that Dis married first and better, Bas' father claimed one night in a fit of temper punctuated by coughing. And it was no wonder then, by extension, that Dis should be the first to celebrate this night, her son's naming. But Bas was the only one besides Dis herself there present who knew that, unannounced yet, already there was another child on the way, forming slowly in that mysterious internal forge Bas hardly understood herself in spite of supposedly having one.

Pipes tooted and viols twanged, while boots and drums thumped out a rhythm that vibrated through the floor. Ale flowed freely, and pale honey mead passed back and forth in intricate decanters. Food circulated time and time again; boar from the forest beyond their gates, game birds, venison, and sweets made by Dis herself. Her mother had assisted, as old as she was, and Bas too when she had time away from the sorting tables. But with no mother, it was probably just as well there had been not even a glimmer of need for a naming day feast for Bas; alone, she and her husband would have difficulty making the preparations. And with two little ones-- Two! Such blessings-- by that time, Bas figured that her sometimes enemy oftentimes friend would be less able to help than even she had been herself.

No, it was best tonight that Bas sat back, enjoyed her meade and her roast quail and good dark bread, and waited. This was not a competition she could win, and sadly, should not be a competition anyway, though the looks passing round the table from unmarried man to unmarried man proved it was, again, a pastime for them to debate which had proved the Better Woman this time. Those who could or would never marry always seemed to like gossip best of all. Which was the best cook, who would have the first child, who sewed the best seam, who would have the first girl, who would have the most children in her life-- Why was it their fate to always compete, to be compared? Was neither of them good enough on her own, as a craftswoman, as a person, that she had to be the best at all things female?

What was the place of a Dwarf woman that never had a child?

Dis' voice cut into her brooding as her plate unexpectedly left her hand. “Bas, take him for me? I need the privy closet.”

And a plump, blond lump of blanket with a face was plopped into her lap. So few of them, she thought looking down at the little boy in her lap. Six months, now. He was likely to live, and already grasping at tiny toy hammers, though not as often as he stared wide-eyed and cooing at Dili's viol and reached with fat baby fingers for the bow. Music was in the hearts of all dwarves, but it seemed to be stronger in this one's than the desire to craft or mine.

“You do like your music, don't you little one?” she said absently while he toyed with the jewel at the end of her braid. “No, don't gum that. It's too small. Take my keys, there we are.”

Shifting him more upright on her hip, Bas settled back in her chair, the arm creaking as she braced against it and tucked a foot beneath herself. Secure in the hollow of her lap, the baby was able to more or less sit up without aid and shook her ring of keys frantically, grinning at the noise. He was content, but Bas kept a watchful hand against his back all the same, in case he toppled sideways. Wouldn't do to hit a royal head on a chair arm before his mother got back from the necessary. The comparisons would never stop, and Bas would of course, come out the loser.

Keys jingled, and the baby babbled. Bas waited, picking at her meat one handed, keeping one hand always for the little blond head in her lap. Bored with her keys, then, the baby reached for the emerald in her hair again. Like any dwarf, he was attracted to shining things.

“You can't have that, little one. No. It's pretty though isn't it? He's good to me. Yes, and one day you'll grow up and make pretty things for a pretty girl and hope she'll marry you and make little babies like you are now. But that's a long time away. Should we sing? Yes? You think we should? I do too. What should we sing? I know a song about digging up onions... no, you're too young for that one.” The baby smiled at her string of banter, staring up into her eyes and working to keep the contact. He wanted to understand, and learn more. There was a very nimble brain in that little head. He would be a good, strong prince one day.

“You will be a fine mother one day,” Gloin said, bending to place a kiss on her temple as he stroked her hair.

“Will I?”

“You will,” he said, confident, but putting a possessive arm around her and glaring at young Thror the Reedy across the table anyway. “And we can try as often as you want, as many times a day as you want, whenever you want,” he continued, nuzzling her ear.

Amused but trying not to show it, Bas squinted one eye and peered at her husband over her shoulder. She felt secure when Gloin showed off like this, proving to the other men who had competed for her attention that he had won, that he was lucky, or at least, luckier than the scores of erstwhile bachelors whose eyes still followed her around the hall at meals.

But what is the place of a dwarf woman who has no children?

“There now, have you enjoyed tormenting your aunt, my son? Thank you, Bas, I was desperate. Haven't been able to leave the Hall at all this evening.” The baby cooed and flailed a bit in his seat at the sound of his mother's voice, excited.

“He was no burden,” Bas replied, stroking his golden head again. “Though I think, when I die, I must leave him my emerald for all he tries to gum on it.”

“Those are long days away,” Dis said cuddling her son. “I thank you, friend, as always.”

“Of course,” Bas replied. “No trouble. He is a sweet little thing. I wish you much joy in him.” Here, she lowered her voice, “and his sister.”

“We'll see,” Dis replied with a wink. “In good time.”

Quiet fell around them. Gloin finished his ale. Bas sipped her mead, strong stuff from some human city. It made her sleepy.

“You look sad,” Gloin said finally.

“I am,” she answered, ever direct.

“Did I do something?”

Bas smiled. His instincts were good. “No, love. You did not. I'm afraid I did. Or have. Or, more precisely, have not.”

“Ah.” Gloin leaned closer, looking toward the end of the table where Thorin now held his nephew close to his harp and plucked a string. The baby laughed. “In time, they will come,” he said softly. “And we are not so far behind as you fear. Thorin has yet to even find a bride.”

“He had thought of one, he told me,” Bas said. “Years ago. Whatever became of her?”

“I married her.”

Bas laughed. “What?

“He'd thought of her; I pursued her, in spite of her razor tongue and sledge-hammer criticism of everything under the mountain.”

“You lie!” she chided, laughing. Thorin? Had fancied her?

“You could have married better. Your father always said so,” Gloin said. Bas squinted, lost in thought.

“No,” she said finally, and stood to take her husband's hand. The prickles had never left her neck where he'd nuzzled her and nipped sharply at her ear. “I could not have married better.”

There was a sway in her walk as she left the feasting hall; she made sure of it, and there was no need to turn back to make sure it was seen. While never silent, the racket in the room behind them changed, just for a measure, as here and there eyes followed her out of the hall. But from the corner of her eye, she saw the Prince's face, little Fili held in mid-air being passed back to his father.

Was that regret? Jealousy?

Her step faltered, a half-beat dragging of a foot.

She kept on walking.


	2. T.A. 2859, the next day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adult Content starts here. Mentions of vomiting. (They're only tangentially related.)

That naming feast changed things, not with Bas and Gloin, not in the least. She made certain of that. Nor did she allow it to change her friendship with Dis, who came to rely on Bas more and more as time passed and the second child grew.

How awkward, then, was the fact that Thorin was so attentive to his little nephew.

But what had changed? Bas could not tell. It was something within her, she knew. But pinpointing it proved impossible: a single pyrite fleck in an otherwise pure piece of quartz, it might be seen vaguely from a distance, but could not be removed without great damage to the whole crystal.

Bas, ever aware of her perception by others, took great care to maintain her personas; the dutiful wife enraptured with her chosen husband; the shrewed appraiser, keen eyed to the tiniest flaws; the kindly friend seeing to it that Dili and little Fili, and Thorin when he was present, all had enough to eat if Dis felt too unwell to cook. Mahal forbid that she suffered that malady, if her time ever came!

Bas was shortly quite exhausted with worrying about it all. But Dwarf women, good ones anyway her father had said, do not succumb to weeping and displays of emotion. They work.

So she worked, until she could not work any more. It started with an ache behind her eyes, as though she'd been squinting at the magnifying lens too much, though she'd not been at the sorting table yet that day. Once out of bed and making Gloin's morning tea, she noticed a cloth-like feeling in the back of her throat and her heart sank. Perfect. She was ill.

Undeterred at first, she pressed through the day as careful as ever. Choice of clothing exact, greetings and speech with others carefully thought-out, movements measured and monitored, not too friendly with any one or too aggressively forward while still not appearing weak.

By lunch, she was ready to drop off to sleep. Groin, her father in law, even paused, eying her shrewdly.

“Girl, go home and eat something. You are pale as linen.”

“I'm all right,” she insisted, straightening her back at the sorting table.

“You are tired, wan, and your lips are nearly blue.” He put his hand over the lens and moved it aside. “Go and eat something and rest. And not at Dis' quarters. In your own.”

Her own father gone, it was becoming habit to listen to Groin's orders instead, and after taking brief mental stock-- she was, in fact, quite tired-- she nodded and left the sorting chamber for her quarters. There was leftover barley soup in the pot over the fire. She would warm that, with some bread. But, once in her own kitchen, she realized she had no bread, and shuffled across the hall in her slippers to borrow half a loaf from Dis.

Thorin opened the door at her rap, the baby on his shoulder. Sounds of retching came from the privy chamber beyond the sitting room. Dis was ill again.

“Oh dear,” Bas sighed, heading for Dis' kitchen. “I'll make her peppermint tea.”

“The kettle is on,” the prince said in his rolling deep voice. “Make yourself some as well. You look spent.”

“Will every male beneath this infernal mountain persist in telling me I look ghastly today?” she huffed, frustrated.

“Only until you look well again,” Thorin replied, his expression a mixture of amusement and annoyance.

“I only wish I could stop worrying so much about other peoples' opinions,” she continued.

“Then do so,” Thorin said, as though it were that simple. Bas laughed. “What is funny?”

“I've been told perhaps I should have been more interested in your opinion some few years ago,” she said facing the cooktop. “That I could have married better and already have a son.”

She felt more than heard Thorin step up behind her. “And who told you that?” he asked.

“Gloin.”

“The winner,” he said.

“And was I merely the prize, or the judge as well? And why didn't I know of it then?”

“Would it have mattered?” Thorin asked as the baby fussed on his shoulder.

“How am I to answer that? I cannot know how the future would have been changed by the past.”

He took another step closer. She could feel heat radiating off of him like a forge against the blades of her shoulders, though he had not touched her. Or was it all in her mind?

Thorin reached past her, filling a mug with hot water. He asked again, quietly, close to her ear. “Would it have mattered?”

Would it? “To my father.”

“And of what importance was his opinion? It was your choice, was it not? Not his.”

Bas stayed silent.

“Gloin son of Groin is a loyal thain of my father's, and will be a loyal thain of mine. I bear him no ill will in any thing. I hope he knows this?” Thorin said leaving the room with the tea.

Bas still said nothing, and cut a slice from the loaf of bread she had made for Dis herself the day before. Spreading it with a little butter, she popped it gingerly into the oven to toast and went through the cupboard for apple jam, Dis' favorite, while it heated. Thorin returned, without the baby, before the toast was done.

“She's gone to lie down. Fili is with her.”

They were alone in the kitchen of her closest friend, Bas and prince Thorin son of Thrain, who had once desired her as his own.

It was entirely improper, and yet entirely innocent. Now.

Her mind raced over how it could go, the greatest mistake of her life. She would feel that forge-heat against her back again, and slowly a heavy iron-worker's hand on her hip, turning her to look up into that noble face with the crooked nose and shrewd dark blue eyes. Her feet tingled and her face heated as though she stood within the oven, not before it. There was a tightness in her belly she had felt only a few times before, only with her husband, and yet, it was so much MORE now, lost in the idea of Thorin's touch, the authority with which he would push aside her hair, tilt her chin up, kiss her, claim her. It made her knees weak, head swimming, and she clung to the solid block of counter behind her.

“By the beard of Mahal you burn like a ruby,” he said quietly, kissing her again, fist snarled in the hair at the nape of her neck, finger tips digging into the small of her back. It was a dream to be lost in, pressed tight against the chest of the prince in such a forbidden place and way. And she would be a fool again to refuse it, to measure her responses with logic and restraint and concern for the opinions of others.

Bas kissed him back, wads of his shirt front in her hands, pressed high up on her toes, as demanding as she was desired. His beard was soft against her cheeks, tickling her lip as her tongue found his and slipped molten beneath and beside it. Teasing. He shuddered, shocked as she had been the first time someone did the same to her. His gasp of surprise made her feel powerful. Yes, it was enough like that other heated, forbidden touch that it stole the breath. He would see. For there was no saying no, not like that, alone and inflamed. Her back arched, pressing her mound against his leg and her breasts tight to his chest, the nipples almost painfully sensitive to every brush of fabric and change of pressure. She panted, aching for touch without the obstacles of too many clothes, and untied her vest to shrug it off. One less layer. Only one! Unacceptable. She worked the toggles of Thorin's vest loose quickly, the ivory rattling on the stone of the floor as it fell away. His shirt, next, came loose from his belt, and she dug short, demanding fingernails into the skin of his back as she clawed at it to toss it aside too. Bare-chested before her... here was a piece to be worked, carefully, with thought to the outcome before a single stroke was made.

But the piece had other ideas and worked loose her belt and skirt ties remarkably quickly for one with reportedly little experience. Belt dropped at her feet, skirt unwrapped and tossed aside, a work-hardened hand gripped her shift above the knee and drew it up. Puffs of cool air across her thighs made her shiver and sent the goose-flesh crawling up her back. Her nipples peaked, clearly visible through the thin linen, and Thorin moaned as he bent to take one in his mouth through the fabric. Dampness grew between her thighs, tantalized as she was by his ardor, and his trembling. A thumbnail found the point of her hip beneath her shift and she moaned again, clinging desperately to a forearm and stone-hard shoulder, begging him not to stop, demanding more. There was a bare hand on the underside of the other breast, weighing it carefully, caressing, while he laved and sucked and nibbled on the other. It drove her mad. She reached for his belt, then, and untied his pants, entirely ungentle in the process. There was a table behind them and she pushed him toward it, until he sat, naked and rippling with muscle, legs dangling. Shift finally gone, she boosted herself onto his lap with a foot on the chair and knelt above him, so close their heat mingled, her dampness grown to a slick puddle of need, his hardness quivering, straining for her entrance.

Bas rocked her hips forward, rubbing him against her lips, teasing her most sensitive parts with his. The prince froze in reverent awe. Breasts in his face, thighs tight against his hips, his restraint was pushed to its limits. He clung trembling to her leg and her upper arm as she worked against and above him, tormenting them both.

“Please?” he whispered with a shuddering breath.

She filled herself with him in a slow, controlled descent, taken over by the stretching, the fullness of penetration, hardly sated when, seated fully, she began to rock gently back and forth, circling him inside her. Not too fast, she would exhaust him too soon. Nor too slowly, or he would think he should take over and she would never-- there!-- find release first, and teach him how it is between a man and woman.

Eyes closed, she clung to Thorin's shoulders, bracing herself for a steady rhythm, thrusting in tempo to the pounding of her heart and the prince's gasps against her neck. Puffs of cool breath rolled down her bare back and two iron hot palms rode against her hips, steadying her, guiding her to grind against him. His control was waning, his breathing ragged, punctuated by gulps and mumbled words she didn't quite understand. One sounded like “there” and “heat” and “wet” and “please, more” and “can't stop”. A gulp turned into a groan, and then another came quickly behind it. His grip became insistent, demanding, nails dug into the meat of her thigh and rump, pulling her down against him harder and harder, and his back arched, driving him fully inside, then out, then in again.

There! He was on it. That tender place just inside. Elusive. Exhilarating. He rubbed it a second time, a third, again with each thrust. Bas arched up and braced her hands behind her on his knees, perfecting the angle. Every stroke true, driving them closer, the burning and frightening feeling of lost control spread up through her belly and down through her aching thighs. She whimpered, flailing, a ball of molten wanting as the first waves struck her, and drawn hard against his rigidness, her moans tore from her throat as the pleasure hammered down on her again and again. Bas could only hold on while the onslaught continued, her toes curling against the prince's thighs, her only conscious thought to cling, shivering to any sturdy thing she could find. Then suddenly one last, hard stroke, and stillness beneath her, a soft beard and cool gasp against her chest the only sign that the prince had, in their race toward oblivion, caught her up. He was silent as his pleasure came, grip hard enough to leave blue fingerprints on her skin. And so vulnerable, so trusting in that moment... Bas moved protectively against him, cradling his head between her breasts as he finished, shuddering.

“Would it have mattered?” Thorin asked again, her thoughts jerked back to the present. The kitchen. The toast. The tea. “Had I said something before your marriage?”

She was tired. So tired. Bas closed her eyes, catching her breath, and looked up at the prince's face.

“It cannot matter now.”

“And so, it shall not,” he replied, nodding toward the oven. “I will take my sister her toast. You should rest.”

Bas sliced another piece from the loaf, wrapped it in a napkin, and shut the door quietly behind her on the way back to her chambers, ashamed of the slickness between her folds. With tears so close, it was hard to hold them back, and she ate her meal between sniffles and swipes at her runny eyes. Then, she slept.


	3. T.A. 2941, April 1st in the Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Years have passed. People have been born, and died, and changed. But some wonderful, frightening, wondered about things, remain the same.

“You will not be going! I don't care if you think you can 'catch up' your father and uncle in a day or two. I don't care if you think you're a better choice just because you can best Ori with the traveling ax. I could best Ori with a traveling ax and I've not hefted one since before your birth. The fact that you persist in asking simply because he was included in the party irks me to a level you cannot yet fathom.”

Bas finally turned away from the dish basin, then, to face her petulant and equally stubborn son. Her eyes matched the fiery garnet of her hair, gleaming in her rage. Her Gimli had never seen her so angry, and as he quickly realized, they both knew it. She saw retreat in his eyes even as she closed on him and looked up-- just a bit, but up-- into his face.

“You were not left because you aren't a fit fighter. You were not left because anyone thinks you a coward. You were left because there are too few youngsters your age to begin with-- because you are all so hard won. You are, thankfully, too precious to your Da and I to lose on a trip to face dragonfire and flames-only-know what. And if you speak of it again, to myself or anyone else, I will be balefully displeased. Have I finally made myself clear?”

“Yes Mother,” Gimli said softly, fiddling with the ties on his purse at his belt. Bas stood a moment longer with her son pinned in place by her glare, just to hammer home the point. She waited. “I'm sorry that I angered His Highness, and you.”

“Thank you,” she said just as softly, almost smiling at how childlike he could still look. He was a good boy, but brazen and strong-willed. Gloin always blamed her for working that streak into him, and she supposed, watching him eye the place where his father's pack had sat four days before, that he could be right. But Gloin was gone, off now on a journey to the Lonely Mountain, that ancestral home lost so long ago she could scarce remember it except from nightmares of fire and stink and lurking black shadows in the night.

Now, to repair what damage he may have done with Thorin, Bas said to herself with a sinking feeling in her gut.

Thorin had changed over the years-- grown harder, and grim-- as they all had, she added equitably. But she couldn't help wondering how much of that change had come because of her own deliberate but oh-so-casual distancing of herself from the royal family, even as it dwindled after Thrain's madness and capture and eventual death. Dis was as close as Bas could stand to have her, but Bas never stopped reminding herself of 'place' and 'choices made' so that if her friend's royal brother happened to be home from one of his journeys to smith armor for the Men and gather news of the mountain, she was discouraged from socializing with him in any context.

One silly daydream, a fever dream, really: that's all it had taken to change her life forever. But the years had passed as they had passed, and there was no returning a life to the forge to melt it down and cast it anew. Life was a crystal, not an ingot; once the cut was made, it was forever part of the piece. Silver streaked her red-brown curls here and there. Fine shadowy lines flanked her eyes and lips. She was not the fresh cut gem she'd once been, though she was proud enough to say that she'd aged better than Dis had anyway. Age had not left much patina on Bas, like Dis' long white hair and rolling limp; rather, Bas saw herself merely polished by time, softening her sharp edges without affecting her clarity. And, she had on good word through her husband that even among the oldest men, it was declared that the youngsters now, those few precious children they finally had in more than smatterings of one or two at a time, couldn't hold a candle to the charm and grace and wit of Bas and Dis in their youth.

Like diamonds, great Dwarven women grew best with pressure.

It was a comfort, however small, to know oneself to be a treasured thing. A comfort, Bas hoped, she had just impressed on her hard-headed son.

The last dishes put away, she fished a shoe out from under the cloak tree where she'd flung it in her fury, and whirled a shawl over her blouse as she left their chambers. It was a warm night for early spring. She went quietly, listening; Gimli had gone to his room, and Dis likely slept in her empty rooms across the hall, or hopefully slept, at any rate. It would be the first time her friend had found any rest since the princes had left four days prior, hoping to pick up a bit of adventure on their way to meet the wizard and begin-- or not-- this quest of Thorin's. The party was to meet somewhere near the borders of The Shire, each taking their own paths unknown to any but themselves, to throw any conspirators or enemies off the scent of their plan.

Bas wanted to ask herself as she looked at the intricate carvings and masonry of their hall why it couldn't be enough, but she knew better. Her child's mind, the part of her buried deep within that still recalled how it was to have a mother brush and braid her hair and enough children nearby to play day long games of hide and seek, knew: nothing but their mountain would ever be good enough. Not for Gloin and the other travelers, not for Thorin, or Fili and Kili as devoted as they were to their uncle, and truthfully, not good enough for Bas herself. As terrifying as it might be to pack an entire settlement of dozens of families and move back into that ancient catacombs, it was where the Longbeards belonged. Thorin was adamant. He never spoke of children of his own, but swore Fili would rule their hall in their mountain and craft and trade in their ancestral home, with Kili at his elbow as Thorin and Frerin should have done. And Bas knew in that same child's mind that remembered her mother's singing that Thorin would die to see them reestablished there, if it came to that.

He had long ceased to hope for a legacy of his own. So it was useless, she knew, to even attempt to talk him out of the journey. And yet part of her...

That part of her would have to remain silent, as it had for many years where Thorin was concerned. Her advice, worry, haranguing, yelling, and tears were not to be spent on him. It was not her place. She had chosen differently. What's done is done.

That uselessness was what she later blamed for her silence as she rounded the corner near Thorin's meeting chamber and came suddenly upon him with his head and forearm braced against a wall, fists and jaw clenched. Seeing a shadow, he looked up, and that familiar icy shiver shot through her when he caught her eye. She froze trembling like a maid, pinned in his gaze as though she, not her Gimli, had been the one to anger him. Or was he angry? With a moment now to watch him as he straightened up and composed himself, she saw no more anger than the thin veneer of it he always wore these days. No, Gimli's shouting and prophecies of failure and a fiery death hadn't angered their king; they had merely echoed what his own fear told him with every breath he took.

Gimli had gotten her tendency toward bluntness too, now that she thought of it. The realization made her smile.

“My son is a hot-headed, stubborn, disrespectful idiot, who will be apologizing most humbly before you leave,” she began, the barest gleam of her old-- or young, as it were-- self in her eyes. “His father blames me for that. I secretly blame his father.”

“The boy came by it honestly and in double dose from both of you,” Thorin said. “But, there are worse traits to inherit than being sure of ones beliefs.”

“But what he said--”

“What he said were the words on the heart of a frightened boy who watched his father and best friends leave him behind to walk into great peril. He was not wrong to speak.”

“He was wrong to speak that way, and to you. Had he kept this argument at home, where it belongs...” Bas thought she'd scream, or faint, when Thorin put his hand on her shoulder.

It was the closest they had been physically in over eighty years.

Thorin made eye contact. “Had he kept these thoughts at home, he would never have forgiven himself for his silence should we not succeed.”

Those words, from that face, and the sorrow in those glacial blue eyes... To her shame, Bas felt her own eyes well with tears and quickly set her jaw. Thorin quirked a corner of his mouth, knowing better than to condescend to her by smiling in a rare moment of weakness.

“So, young Gimli is not the only one who is afraid for his father,” Thorin said knowingly, giving her shoulder what was meant to be a comforting squeeze. Bas shook her head without meaning to.

“Gloin will return, or not, as it is any time he leaves these halls. I've given him what counsel I had; I am at peace with what may come of my husband.”

Eighty years with but one dream battering around the back of her skull like a flame in a draft, and those words-- “should we not succeed”-- ringing in her ears.... It could not go unsaid.

She met Thorin's eyes.

“It is not my husband for whom I fear.”

Puzzlement, sadness, and-- was that desire?-- flickered across her king's face. His mouth fell open, just the tiniest bit, the surprise was so great. But, she was in the fire now; she might as well finish it.

“I would have chosen differently,” she said with a fierceness in her voice that seemed out of place for this confession, “had I known eighty-five years ago.”

“Eighty-five years,” he mused, taking her hand with his free one. Thorin squinted into the middle distance for a moment, though what could be so damnedably interesting about a pillar Bas couldn't begin to guess. “I was a fool to play coy, then,” he said finally. “I did not begin to understand the preciousness of life until... not very long ago, really.”

He looked at her again with that almost smile and shrugged, “I am sorry.”

Burn it all, she thought, and stood on tip toe to grasp his face. She'd dreamed of this, not just that once when Fili was a wee babe and his first sister hadn't yet been born too early, but night after lonely night while Gloin was away smithing in the human lands. And there was no time left. None known for certain, at any rate.

Bas was not gentle when she kissed her king, and after a moment, he tried to put her aside with both hands on her arms, pushing her away even has he held on.

But it was only a moment. Thorin was, as she had always imagined, just as hungry as she was herself.

This part, it seemed, he knew, and after a moment he let go her arms to press her to his midsection and tip her head to the side. It was as she'd always thought, like being lifted up by some great tree. The arm she dug her nails into was as unyielding as tempered steel, the cambric of his shirt downy and soft.

Finally.

Bas untangled his braid from her fingers and shifted that hand to his shoulder, digging in, craving the pressure that could somehow join them, two separates, into the whole she had known too late could have been, if only for that moment.

“Chambers,” she drew enough breath to gasp. “Now.”

It would not do to be seen in the corridor in such fashion, but she said it against her own bad judgment. The interruption might stop him cold, end them before they were begun. She didn't stop kissing him, couldn't let go now that she had him in her hands, but petite as she was, it was easy for Thorin to lift her feet clear of the floor and turn down the passage toward the heavy oaken door that led to his private rooms. She'd never cursed a skirt for being in the bloody way so violently as she did when his palm landed on her rear and squeezed.

“What did I do?” Thorin asked, putting her down before his door. Bas was confused, breathless.

“Everything right. Why have you stopped?”

“You made a sound, I thought... perhaps you had reconsidered, or I had hurt you, or-- ”

“There is nothing to reconsider,” she declared, “and sounds are generally a good thing, given the scenario.”

“Oh.” Her king looked so aseas in that moment, her always composed and confident Thorin, Bas was moved to take him into her arms again and pressed her forehead to his chest.

“Take me into your room, remove my clothes, let me remove yours, and lie with me on your bed, under the blankets, or atop the carpet, or in the chair beside the fireplace even. Whatever and how ever, I am yours for the having.” He began to protest, but she quieted him with a finger on his lip and continued.

“I want whatever tiny sliver of what might have been I can still have. If this is all, then so be it. I did not deny you, my King, knowingly, and will not do so willingly now.” Thorin sighed, frustrated, and pressed her head to his chest again, smoothing his fingers through her hair as she finished. “I can never forgive myself for the pain I've caused us both. Do not make my mistake, now that the chance is upon us.”

“I am the King first, a man second. Some decisions are not mine, but my kingdom's.”

“Are you not allowed to address the needs of that man before you do what is kingly and right that may kill you all?” Bas wept in earnest now, her greatest regret finally named, and so called alongside her greatest fear.

“What if we do come back?” Thorin said softly. “What then?”

“I am not some elf witch that can divine the future in a wine goblet. I only know now.” Resting on his shoulder, Bas put her hand to Thorin's chest, where his heart thumped erratically against her palm.

“This is now.” With his left hand in her right, she kissed it once then pressed it to her own breast, his fingertips trailing down her neck and across her collar bone so softly gooseflesh crept down her arm.

“This is what we have... what I wasted.”

“Stop that,” Thorin scolded, unconsciously circling his thumb across her cleavage. “We both chose not to speak. Blame is useless.”

Bas reached for the door handle and pushed. “Let me make up for it? If I can.”

Thorin followed her into the chamber, checking the corridor briefly before shutting the door and plunging them into darkness.

“There's a candle,” he began, but she cut him off.

“We don't need it.”

“But I want it.”

Bas looked up and smiled. “As you wish.”

Thorin spoke again, following her as she groped along the bed to light the candle. “What do I do?”

“Whatever you want.”

“That's distinctly uninstructive, Bas. I haven't--”

“Hush,” she ordered, smiling, and put his hand back on her backside. “Follow my lead. You'll sort it out.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss her king again, and he let her with a satisfied sigh and another squeeze to her bottom.

Thorin's other hand dropped to her hip as the candle flickered to life, and the first slipped slowly under the curve of a cheek and up her thigh until he held her at the waist, as though he planned to lift her up. Instead he guided her toward the mattress and turned her facing it, her arms braced on the coverlet. He stood behind her a moment, looking thoughtful.

“Wait,” she said. “I'm too short for this, unless...” Bracing her hip against the mattress, she slipped off her shoes and stockings before clambering onto the bed and kneeling with her back to the king. Thorin grunted, an approving sound, and Bas shivered when his warm, work-hardened fingertips traced circles around her ankles.

“You said something about removing your clothing?” he asked, working slowly up either leg toward her knees. She nodded as he hiked her skirt up to her waist, and she fumbled for the ties to take it off entirely.

“Just these,” he decided, tugging at the waist of her underclothes. “Leave the rest.”

“You expect to be interrupted?” she asked, obliging anyway.

“You will grow cold,” he said smoothing a hand across her bottom reverently.

Bas caught her breath. “I am unconcerned about a chill, but it shall be as you say.” In that position she was turned away from both Thorin and the light. His shadow on the wall in front of her told her little.

His hands, though...

His hands were warm, if trembling slightly, an observation that made Bas smile. The king spent a few moments studying her backside carefully.

Perplexed, Bas finally spoke. “Thorin? You realize there is more to it than this?”

“Yes,” he said as a finger traced the shadow where thigh met cheek, then slipped gently between her folds. “But I would not risk harming you. You are... too precious to me.” Bas smiled, eyes closed against his tickling, and steeled herself to be patient as the king satisfied his curiosity.

And he was remarkably curious. Eventually she felt the brush of a beard against her skin, then the heat and humidity of breath, and the smooth press of lips while his hand circled and stroked, teasing in a most endearing way.

Each time he passed gently between her legs again, he pressed a finger a tiny bit deeper. After one last sweep and a bit more lingering-- yes! He'd found it-- the process began again and Bas thought she'd scream from the frustration of waiting.

But he'd waited eighty years. What was five minutes, with his cheek on her hip and a rough palm tracing so gently up her thigh until, at last, he reached her center again?

The nip to her bottom was unexpected, and she jumped, gasping, as he slipped a finger inside her, following it quickly with a second. Now here was something she hadn't enjoyed in quite a while. Too long, really. Since Dis' third dead daughter and Gloin's decision that a son was enough, that she was too dear to risk in pursuit of a girl, he had hardly touched her intimately or otherwise, so great was his fear of raising a child alone. And now the throbbing, the tantalizing pressure of Thorin's fingers working inside her made Bas realize how much love had gone away between her and her husband when their intimacy had. Their farewell a few days before had been affectionate, as it always was, but lacking in something. Passion, she supposed.

It was surprising to realize how much had really been missing.

Bas gathered her fragmented thoughts and reached for Thorin's other hand, braced beside them on the bed.

“Here,” she ordered, breathless, and shucked her skirt out of the way until he could reach around her hip to her center with that hand too. “Just... there.”

With two fingers working opposite each other inside her and a third now tracing circles and lines across the pebble at the front of her sex, it wasn't long before Bas shuddered, gasping, and tipped forward to rest her head on the bed. Close. It was so close, another moment and--

Thorin pulled away.

“Thorin!?” She turned to look over her shoulder, and found him with his laces already undone and shirt and vest half way over his head. Clearly, he was ready for her, deliciously so, and she simply stared at the sight of her king turned into something else, almost animal in his desire. Eyes fever bright with pure wanting, hair askew as he took her by her hips and pulled her back to the edge of the mattress, he was glorious.

“I can't stand any more,” he said simply, the soft tip of his member replacing his fingers. And in a slick, burning moment of pressure he was inside her, trembling as he gasped to bring himself under some kind of control. His grip on her right hip actually hurt, even on the wave of not-yet-sated pleasure she rode. Bas was surprised to realize she didn't mind the pain, welcomed it even. He could hurt her, if he wanted to, in any number of ways. The fact that he chose not to, even when he was not entirely in his usual business-like frame of mind did as much to drive her toward her pleasure as his hardness throbbing inside her or the hand he returned to her center, already circling again.

“You have thought this out before,” she accused gently, stroking the forearm wrapped around her belly as she leaned back against his chest. Hard bulges of muscle and tightly puckered nipples teased her through her clothes. How she wished she was naked!

“I cannot lie,” he said, shifting his feet to brace himself against her weight. “This and many other things.” Thorin's right hand snaked up to cup her breast through her blouse. She shifted her hips ever so slightly forward, then back again, grinding against his hardness. Thorin panted down her neck a moment as he caught enough breath to finish. “But the thinking could not begin touch the reality of it.”

Bas rolled her hips again, eliciting another gasp and a groan from Thorin, who worked her shoulder and breast free with no heed to stitches or buttons. Bas took the opportunity to run a hand down her belly and between her legs, over his hand, to stroke them both where they were joined, gently at first, the surprising foreignness of her touch even as he rested inside her enough to thrill him and excite her with his reaction.

Bas shifted again, head rolling on his shoulder as a welcome, familiar burning started up from his hands at her folds and breast. Thorin circled faster, pressing the heel of his hand down on her mound as she slipped away, then back again.

“I had thought you would be on all fours before me,” he said into her ear. His breath was ragged and hot, rolling down the sensitive side of her neck between open-mouthed gasps and tiny nips at her ear and shoulder. He had taken to teasing matching circles around her nipple with his free hand and around her ear lobe with his tongue.

“But then you could not drive me so quickly to the brink as you are,” she said, quickening her pace. The light slapping sound between them grew louder and more urgent.

“You mean this?” Thorin asked, rubbing her bud between his thumb and finger. He was restrained, gentle about it, but Bas was in that moment undone and pitched forward with a cry. He found it again and tugged even as the change in angle allowed his member deeper access and he slipped to the root inside her. Sprawled on her face in the throws of bliss, Bas panted and cried out again wordlessly, leaving Thorin to begin a steady rhythm behind her. It was not long before he caught her up and groaned his relief into her shoulder as he slumped against her back, shuddering as he filled her one last time.

For a few precious moments, all was quiet.


	4. T.A. 2941, April 1st, night

Hips and knees screaming, Bas tipped carefully onto her side and untangled her feet from beneath Thorin's chest. He joined her, lying sideways across his bed and pushing her hair away from her eyes. She was drowsy, and deliciously sated in a way she'd never known before. Thorin appeared similarly relaxed. Pleased, even. He didn't quite smile, but there was an old familiar softness around the corners of his eyes that Bas had missed. For many reasons.

For several minutes they lay just breathing, coming to terms with what had just changed and what it all meant. And in that time Thorin couldn't stop touching her. He stroked her cheek with the back of a finger and ran a fingertip across her lower lip, then fell to rubbing her back awkwardly with one hand, arm stretched across the space between them. Bas sat up, intending to fold herself into Thorin's arms, but stopped.

He was... lovely.

“You wanted that candle so you could see me, couldn't you?” She chuckled when a faint blush colored Thorin's cheeks. He nodded, and shrugged. On her knees then, Bas laughed and pushed him onto his back playfully. “While I saw only a looming shadow and this quilt underneath us. So, by your leave, sire, I will look my fill at you now.”

Thorin's eyebrow rose in interest, but at her narrowed eyes he smiled and spread his arms wide.

“At your leisure, my lady. I am here but to serve.”

Bas had lived her entire life surrounded by stonemasons, miners, and smiths. She was used to even 280 year old men with biceps the size of her head.

But Thorin nude, or mostly so-- she realized he still had his boots on with his pants around his ankles-- was a new and gorgeous thing to behold. She grinned.

“First, out of these,” she declared, and took hold of his boot, skinning his pants leg off after. The second came off with a little more effort and Bas ended up standing beside the bed to tug it off underhanded. She took the opportunity to shuck off what was left of her own clothing and added it to the heap on the floor. Thorin turned to prop himself up on the pillows with his arms behind his head, the candle casting dancing shadows against his arm and chest while he watched her disrobe.

He really was perfect, every inch of him sculpted into firm, hard lines and well-shaped curves. The silver had just started to streak his hair and peppered his chest here and there down his torso. She came back again and again to the slope of muscle down his arms, smooth as polished stone and as unbending as the iron he worked in the armory. And apparently ticklish, which Bas learned when she trailed a fingernail down the length of one bicep as she straddled his hips with a triumphant grin. His instinctive grab for her midsection rubbed their bodies together intimately again and stopped them both cold for a moment. Gooseflesh crept up Thorin's ribs, and he sighed, looking up at her like a drowsy predator after a kill, sated. For now. She smiled first and stretched out on top of him, nestling her face against his chest with a deep sigh of contentment. The thumping of a heartbeat in her ear drove Bas toward sleep again, and the soothing circles Thorin drew on her lower back certainly didn't impede the process.

One of them woke some time later and the other soon followed, though who it was that reached between them for Thorin's rapidly waking member and replaced it where it belonged, neither thought to speculate. Warm and relaxed, this time they were languid, taking in every detail they had missed before in their hurry to claim some shard of enjoyment together. He could fit her breasts in his mouth now, and the attention sent trails of heat into her belly. Bas could watch his jaw tense and eyes slam shut when she squeezed her inner muscles around him before he was prepared to finish. She grinned devilishly when she bent to take one of his nipples in her own mouth and he gasped a surprised “Oh!” into her ear. As he found relief again she straightened up, smiling down at his oblivion from her perch across his hips and took hold of his hands to brace herself for a few last lingering strokes, purely to enjoy the power the motion gave her in those vulnerable, private moments.

When he came back to himself, Thorin looked up at her again and smiled. A genuine smile, full of wonder and more than a little bewilderment. Bas knew love when she saw it; she just wondered what he saw in her eyes as she knelt above him like some wanton fae creature from the forest.

He liked it, whatever it was.

“You deserve more of my attentions,” Thorin said, pushing her onto her side as he fumbled with the bedcovers.

“Again?” she asked, grinning.

“Well, perhaps not that. Not right away, anyway,” he said as he followed her under the sheet. “But I've heard of a thing that the elves do...” Bas rolled her eyes. “Their women are supposed to enjoy it immensely. I thought perhaps...” He trailed his fingers down her hip again-- he'd found one of her most sensitive spots so quickly!-- and kissed her softly, coaxing her to recline on the pillows.

“I will deny you nothing,” she replied, fighting a yawn. She knew, of course, of what he spoke. Perhaps this time she would enjoy it. And, as she expected, he didn't simply dive for her legs and bury his face in her, but even with the sweetness of kissing him and the care with which he examined every inch of her bare skin with his fingers and tongue and teeth, his mouth there did very little to bring her to peak again. There was just no substitute for what they had already done, and though she should by rights be exhausted, in a short time she found herself flat on her back, feet over his shoulders and hands tangled in his hair, begging.

“Please, Thorin, love, leave off this elf silliness. Come back inside me where you belong.”

“Again?” he asked.

“Forever and always,” she replied, and both stopped for a breath, stunned by the implications of what her heart had named so honestly.

“Then how can I say no?”

Three times? She asked herself as she nestled her head on his shoulder again. But eyes closed, safe in the span of Thorin's arms, it was as natural as breathing. There would be no peak for her this time, no breathless tumble into oblivion; she was simply exhausted. But there was a comfort in that exhaustion, the normality of joining under the blankets of a shared bed in failing candlelight, something Bas knew she might never have again, all things considered.

Dwarves were said to be greedy; if being jealous of Thorin's love was her greatest flaw, then so be it. It was hers: she would have it until it was no more.

Her Thorin was so easy to kiss, and while somewhat practiced at it, was by no means demanding or insistent about it. His Highness, it seemed, was as content to be kissed and stroked and nibbled as he was to offer her the same. Bas smiled when nuzzling through his beard to find the tender skin of his neck sent a shiver through him, but it was her tongue and teeth along his collar bone that sent him reeling one last time, and she shook her head, growling playfully while she bit down on the meat of his shoulder, clawing at his back to hold him close.

“You would work me to exhaustion, and then eat me for my trouble, my lady?” he teased once his breath returned.

“If I could, I would swallow you whole and carry you inside me against my heart to keep you forever safe and close to me.”

Thorin leaned up and looked at her through narrowed eyes.

“It sounds better in my head,” she said, dismissing the remark with a wave of her hand. Thorin caught it and kissed it, smiling.

“I think I understand what you mean,” he said.

The king was wilting, exhausted from a long night on the heels of too many long, tiresome days. With a wide yawn, he stretched out beside her and snugged her against his chest again. His decision to reclaim the mountain had not gone unchallenged by many within their clan, the least and last of which was her brash young son. In her heart of hearts, Bas knew it had to be done if they were ever to be more than a tiny enclave of wandering smiths and tinkers and toy-makers.

But knowing it was necessary and coming to grips with it were two entirely different coins to weigh. Unconsciously, she clung to him tighter and hid her face against his arm.

Thorin understood. “I have to go. We must go. You must understand this?” he began, smoothing her hair through his fingers. She nodded, her face still hidden.

“How much do you know of the Mountain?” he asked.

“Very little. I was ten when we left, or almost so. I remember there was fire, red light everywhere, and a strange... living feeling all around us as we left into the forest. And I was... I must have dreamed it, but I remember being on pony back. But that's impossible. I've never ridden a beast in my life.”

“You were on a pony, one of the mining animals from the deepest levels,” Thorin told her. “We had them all brought out to graze on the hills at night and a few were still there as we evacuated. We'd set one aside for your mother, but-” Thorin paused.

“She died before we reached the door,” Bas finished for him. No one spoke to her of her mother since her father's passing, but this was not new information.

“She had sent us children ahead of her into the passage,” Thorin continued. “And remained behind to see that there were no stragglers. But there was so much smoke, and the heat, and she hadn't thought to hand someone else your baby sister. Most likely she was overcome and simply fell there.”

“But we were safe,” Bas said with finality.

“A worthy goal, saving her daughter and the children of her friends,” Thorin added.

“At least until the wolves caught up with us,” Bas added, hiding her grief under a mask of sarcasm.

“I did not remember you being afraid of the wolves,” Thorin said. “Some of the children were, but not you, unless that was a different, curious little redhead with a flinty look in her eyes?”

“I probably did a good job of hiding it,” Bas muttered. “But I was terribly frightened. By everything.”

“You bossed the other children very well, though,” he teased. “None of them got away with wandering about unsupervised. It was hard even to have a peaceful piss in the woods with you around.”

“I did not think I would have made such an impression then,” she said.

“You have always made an impression,” Bas heard Thorin whisper as she finally dozed.


	5. T.A. 2941, April 2nd, the morning

Bas woke some hours later to being kissed. It was not Gloin; he did not kiss her any longer, or sleep curled against her back with his arm beneath her head.

This time, it had not been a dream.

Her heart leapt as her stomach sank. How would she explain? How could she even begin to look Gimli in the eye?

And then she looked again at Thorin, and resolve returned.

Gimli would understand, or he wouldn't. Once the cut was made, it was part of the piece.

“It is early,” Thorin said, kissing her sweetly again. “I thought we should be seen meeting in the hall and discussing... things.”

Bas squinted, confused. “Why?”

“Because if we talk clear-headed as adults in the morning, no one will suspect we were perhaps somewhat rash and youthful during the night.”

“And my son sleeps like a fallen column. He will not hear me go in to change.”

“So,” Thorin said, nodding.

“So,” Bas replied, then broke off, giggling. “I cannot help staring when you have no clothes.”

“Secretly,” Thorin said with a mischivious grin, “I woke you early for another reason.”

Scooping both breasts into his hands, he held them together and nestled his face into them, kissing and nibbling fervently in obvious delight. Bas rolled her eyes at the simplicity of men just in time for Thorin to sweep both palms down her ribs and take hold of both her hips, securing her underneath him again. He sucked one nipple firmly into his mouth while he stroked her belly with the same sweet gentleness Bas had come to realize was simply Thorin's way with her and played the other hand down over her hip to her center again.

“Again?!”

Looking up over the curve of her breast, his gaze almost stopped her heart. “Forever and always.” One eyebrow twitched upward as he grinned and continued. “By my count, you have been more generous than I.” As he found her bud again, already slick and throbbing, he continued. “I would not leave us so unequal.”

“Thorin, you owe me nothing,” Bas declared, even as she closed her eyes against the sensations he sent through her abdomen.

“I have kept us from this too long,” he said, fingers filling her slowly, with great care. “I cannot make up for eighty years in a night, or even a night and a day. But,” he said as he stretched out between her bent legs again, “perhaps once I've taken the Mountain for Fili. Once we're home...”

Thorin needed to have hope, she realized. Whether it had been Gimli's outburst or some inner fear of his own, the idea that once the Mountain was taken, their lives could be better was what had kept him going, and what would make the quest possible.

“Are you doing this because of me?” she asked, stopping him in spite of her body's response to his actions.

“This,” Thorin asked, circling her bud again, “or the other?”

“The other. Is it because you need a new life I didn't ruin?”

“We all need something better, Bas.” Thorin looked at her briefly, sadly, and stroked her belly again. Then his tongue replaced his fingers, hot and slick.

“Your elvish silliness-” Bas paused, eyes wide. “May. Actually. Work. Ooh!”

That inner forge that had more or less betrayed her in life warmed quickly with Thorin's attentive stoking and spread a warm fiery glow up through her belly. Her nipples tightened in response and begged for touch. His hands were busy with her bottom again, so she took care of them herself, massaging her breasts with a hand for each.

“What are you doing?” she panted.

Thorin stopped long enough to reply. “Practicing my runes.”

Bas laughed and the glow turned red hot and pulsing, promising to overcome her in a powerful flash at any moment. It was thrilling and still somewhat foreign to have that sort of pleasure without his-- or at least someone's-- member inside her. The deeper, core feeling of release was absent; this was more intense, more primal, and Bas noticed she made more noise than she usually did.

It was hard not to scream when the burning turned to an all over wash of searing coolness, but she thought she managed. Thorin grinned up at her triumphantly when she opened her eyes again.

“You look pleased with your penmanship,” she teased, stroking the grays at his temple.

“I have made armor, when I wasn't killing orcs, for over one hundred years. When I wasn't doing those, I tried to master every song ever played on the harp. But for all that, I've never had a piece enjoy being worked so,” Thorin said, stroking her thigh. “Or, at least, none that could tell me.”

“I wonder if the metal keeps a memory of your touch,” Bas mused.

“I would hope so,” he said, rising. “I need some better legacy than leading a band of homeless tinkers to a tumbledown stronghold in someone else's mountains to die out.”

Bas sat up and hung her feet over the edge of the bed. Thorin was already half way into his clothes. She'd been right; he needed hope.

“You will,” she said. “I know it, as certain as my name.”

In the corridor outside Dis' chamber, Bas did her best not to touch Thorin, or even look at him too long or too much and risk giving their secret away. She'd poked her head in on Gimli briefly. As expected, he was soundly asleep. Conveniently just as she shut her door, Dis opened hers, so there would be no questions about how they'd come to be there simultaneously.

Stop being paranoid, Bas told herself.

“Why are you waking us up this early Thorin? I just barely got to sleep,” Dis grumbled, opening her door for them both. The chamber was spotless; Dis had been worried. When she got angry or worried, Dis cleaned. Conveniently, when Bas grew angry or worried, she cooked. So, when one had run out of chores to do in her own quarters, she would often cross over to the other's and take on odd jobs, or simply make dinner. It had been a long time understanding between the two. They shared so much, growing up among the wanders for so long, it would be difficult, Bas realized, not to share this new thing. She headed to Dis' kitchen out of instinct.

“It occurred to me after the lad's outburst last night, that I've been more secretive than I rightfully ought,” Thorin said as he and Dis sat at the kitchen table. “So I've woken you both this morning to explain the plan in more detail and plan contingencies, before I go.”

Dis and Bas exchanged glances. Bas shrugged.

“Very well,” Dis said. “We'll start you something to eat.”

“We should go to the hall,” Thorin said, rising. “No need to eat twice, and Faldo will insist on feeding me anyway, whether I've eaten or not.” Faldo son of Maldo had appointed himself combination cook and valet to Thorin, nevermind the fact that he was nearly 300 years old and could hardly hear any sound below a war cry.

He was also heartbroken to be parted from his king on this journey. The meal and inclusion in the discussion was a peace offering, and a token of Thorin's care for the old man, who he would probably never see again whether he was successful at the Lonely Mountain or not. A year was a long time to be away, and Faldo had few enough of them left.

Dis slipped into the bed chamber to dress and left Bas standing once again at the cooktop in her friend's kitchen with the King Under the Mountain standing at her back, close enough to touch. And yet...

It was entirely improper, and yet entirely innocent. Now.


	6. T.A. 2941, April 6th and after

Days passed with the image of Thorin walking the path that led out of their stronghold burned into Bas' memory and haunting her dreams. She slept little, and fitfully. Her appetite was poor. Gimli spent more time at his table in the apprentices workshop than he did at home. Missing his father, perhaps? Trying to live up to the status she had finally impressed upon him that he carried? Who could tell.

Finally one afternoon the illness caught up with her, and she spent most of the afternoon at the table in her small kitchen with a basin before her. She'd long since run out of food to vomit, but it felt safer to have something nearby, just in case. A perfunctory knock announced Dis' entrance, and in the space of a minute the door was shut, the kettle on, and Bas' head tilted up to have a good looking over.

“What have you eaten?” Dis demanded. Bas could only shake her head. “Nothing today? Yesterday?”

“Toast,” Bas said, her gorge rising at the mere thought of food. “Tea.”

“Two days sick,” Dis said. It wasn't a question, so Bas didn't answer it, just corrected her.

“Three. And a half.” Dis' grunt was displeased, but set her resolve.

“Let's see about clean clothes and a bit of a wash. Perhaps you'll feel better after. Come on, up with you,” Dis ordered, shuffling with her friend into the bedroom and rummaging through her clothing chest. Clean shift, skirt, and blouse landed on the foot of the bed as the kettle hooted in the kitchen. Bas was out of clean stockings.

“I'll bring warm water and a cloth. Do you want my rose soap?” Dis asked. “I'll go fetch it?”

Bas shook her head. “No, there's a bar on the stand.”

Dis returned with a steaming pitcher and poured off half into the ewer. “Well then, down to the lower layers with you and clean up. I'll brush your hair when you come out.”

Bas was light headed and fuzzy eyed, but she was at least standing, and having a few minutes to wash and change clothes was probably the best option. She had been idle-- mourning, to call it what it was-- long enough.

And then she paused, her nose alerting her to something important that she should remember.

This was from the batch of soap I made last fall, she realized, staring at the cake in her hand. A bar of which she'd given each of the princes, and Gloin and Oin, for their journey.

And one for Thorin too.

“Burn it all,” she growled and flung the soap across the room, throwing herself tearfully onto the bed, her arms crossed to ease the ache in her breasts. Hearing the clatter, Dis poked her head through the door.

“Oh, Bas, sweetheart. It's alright,” she said, and sat beside Bas with her arm around her. “I had wondered if missing the men was what upset your system. Best to just get it out,” she soothed. They sat for several minutes rocking to and fro while Bas cried. Dis even teared up a little herself, more advanced in her grief than her friend, though not by much.

“It was the soap,” she said finally, swallowing hard to get her voice back. “It's the batch I sent with Gloin and the rest.”

“Smell can do that, bring up thoughts we've tried to put away,” Dis said. “When I was pregnant with Kili--” Dis froze. “Now there's that, too,” she mused, looking thoughtfully at her friend.

“I wasn't ever sick with Gimli. I can't be pregnant. And I'm too old,” Bas said.

“It's been, what, a week since Oin and Gloin left?” Dis asked, fetching the soap from the bedside table where it had finally landed. “And you did farewell your husband.”

“How did you...?” Bas began, but stopped.

“Because I always farewelled Dili,” Dis said sadly. “And these wooden walls are almost no better than paper. Gloin is usually... appreciative.”

They could be heard through the walls. Bas felt sick all over again and dropped her head into her hands.

“You've been able to hear that for eighty years and never said anything!?”

“Well,” Dis hedged. “I would not have wanted to interrupt, for starters. And if we could be heard, well, I wasn't sure I would want to know who was hearing, even if it was only you and Gloin.”

Bas nodded. It made sense, if nothing else so as to avoid embarrassing the men. “My breasts too,” she muttered finally.

“What about them? They're sore? Swollen?”

Bas nodded and sat up, looking down at her chest. “Both?” she guessed.

Dis shook her head, mouth open in what was quickly turning into a broad smile. “Bas, I really think you may be pregnant.”

In quick succession, the image of her smiling but resolute husband stepping out their chamber door packed for the journey, was followed by one of Thorin looking down at her so reverently in his bedchamber the night before he left.

Pregnant?

Bas burst into tears.

Dis muttered more soothing things and rocked her friend quiet again, then fetched the rose scented soap she'd bought from a peddler woman on her last trip through Dunland. “When you feel up to it,” she said as she brought a wash cloth over from the basin, “we should go to the human village and see if any of their baby things are worth bringing back. You gave most of yours away, didn't you?”

Bas nodded and started washing her face as she headed for the basin. “It's been over sixty years. I hadn't thought to have to worry about another. And now? Oh, what in the world am I going to do, Dis? If I stay this sick the whole time, how will I ever work? And with Gloin gone?”

“We'll figure something out,” Dis said. “And this may be just for a short time. I was hardly sick at all with Kili. The girls, of course, well... they were different.”

Girls. There was another thought Bas hadn't had yet, and ultimately didn't want to think about at all. If she was pregnant, and it was a girl, she was in for a far longer year than she had ever anticipated.

And if it was Thorin's?

“No, no more wibbling,” Dis said shaking a pair of her own clean stockings at Bas. “You're out of these. Wear mine for now and we'll get some of your washing done later. But no more crying over the men. They'll be back, and everything will be fine.”

“We have to keep telling ourselves that,” Dis said as Bas took off her skirt. “Just until they come back.”

Dis, having no sons around to cajole and match-make for, took it upon herself to be Bas' steady right arm, even as Bas had decades before during Dis' difficult pregnancies and the princes' baby years. The doors to their quarters were rarely closed that year, and Dis frequently slept on the setee in Bas' quarters rather than her own.

“Too quiet,” she said, plumping a pillow against the arm rest. “I'm used to two lads snoring in counterpoint all night.”

“Perhaps you can pay Gimli a copper to snore harder and enjoy the racket through the walls,” Bas teased just loud enough for her son to hear down the corridor into his own bedchamber. A muffled groan came by way of answer before a door shut with a final sounding thump. Bas grinned. It had taken Gimli some time to adjust to the fact that he was about have a younger sibling.

“At your age, Mother? Really?” he'd asked, his face a picture of confusion and disgust. Bas hadn't known whether to be amused or hurt, and had ended up crying as she laughed.

She would be glad when that symptom faded, not in the least because of two letters she had gotten near Midsummer, all the way from the Shire, written at the end of April when the party had found their last member and started out. The first was, of course, from her loving husband and had a tone of resigned finality to it that wrung her heart. The second, from Thorin.

“I have no right to write this,” he said briefly in a fluid hand, “save that my heart tells me I must. You would tell me that eighty-five years speaks for itself, but I do not believe it to be so.

We must talk more upon my return. I will keep close to my heart what we undertook the evening prior to my departure, and will send word as I may of our progress in the mean time.

Until then, I remain forever and always,

Your  
Thorin”

The first letter was shared with Gimli, and its admonitions to him to take care of his mother and focus on his studies in the stonecarvers' guild went well-heeded, much to Bas' relief.

The second letter remained hidden deep within the pillow case on her bed, where she could put her hand on it in the night and breathe in the scent of that juniper soap and sleep, pretending for a little while that there had been more than one night.

But there was no way to reply without risking detection, and no way to know, even if it were ventured, that the party would receive it.

Bas wished, finally, that she were some elf witch that could see the future in a bucket of water or whisper to the birds and send her love, and her husband, her thoughts.

So in the mean time, in spite of her illness, she worked in the assay office and the babe grew strong.

Near harvest another message came, this one carried, disturbingly, by tall dark haired Ranger of the men. A few last letters were handed around the settlement, with one folded inside another for Bas. Thorin must have prepared the packet by hand to have included his inside her husband's without detection. And again, he both gave her hope and robbed her of breath.

“You are in my constant thoughts,” he said, “though I am glad you are not with us on this journey. I find myself now worried for my nephews. While I cannot go back and restart this path differently, I regret a few small things, and some not so small things.

Our time together is not one of those regrets. Be well, and content in our absence. It shall not be long, now, before we set eyes on the mountain, and a better life awaits us all.

Until then I remain, forever and always,

Your  
Thorin”

This letter, much battered and stained, joined its predecessor in her pillow case, and stayed out the winter there, while Bas worked, as all good dwarf women did, and the babe grew.


	7. Chapter 7

Nothing was heard of the party except gossip and supposition for quite a long time. The entire winter passed without word, and eventually with signs of spring came rumors. Laketown burned. The dragon slain. The Mountain reclaimed only to be beset on all sides by foes, and a battle fought at her knees.

But in the past, Bas had noticed that the truest word came from the Rangers of the Men, the tall and travel-worn dark haired figures seen sometimes walking softly through the nearby valley.

Disconcerting as they were, Bas could stand no more ignorance. Early one morning she rose and dressed in heavy traveling clothes with a deep-cowled hood and went to the nearest village of humans, ostensibly to buy candle wax. But more importantly, she went to ask after a Ranger or if any word had been heard of Thorin's party. She had heard from the look outs that one had been seen two days before. He had to have made his way to the village by now.

Once in the village, the chandler pointed her to a tall wooden building with a hanging sign depicting an overflowing stein of beer. The innkeeper pointed her to a green-cloaked shape in the corner near the front of the tap room where lunch was being served.

“Ye' eatin, Master Dwarf?” he asked before she walked away. Bas nodded. “Stew and bread?” She nodded again and pointed to the Ranger's table. “For the pair o'ye?” At her third nod, the innkeeper left, shouting for someone in the kitchen to 'move arse'.

The Ranger, in that odd way they had about them, knew he was her purpose there that day and sat up as she neared. Wasting no time, she lowered her hood and looked him in the eyes. Gray and tired. All of them had that worn down look about them, but their eyes told no truths and only flickered now and again with secrets.

Still, they were honest in speech, and speech was what she sought.

“I've bought us lunch,” she began. “I have need of news quickly and thought it best to request it after offering a favor first. May I join you?”

Bemused, the Ranger smirked and gestured to the chair opposite him. This placed Bas with her back to the entire tap room. She was somewhat uncomfortable with the arrangement, but ignored it for the short term.

“We do not often see a Dwarvess away from the stronghold,” the Ranger began. “You are concerned for your men in the east and have been sent by those who wait to see when you should begin your journey home?”

“We have heard no news since late summer,” she said, sighing involuntarily as she sat. Her legs and feet were remarkably sore. “You make it sound as though the news is good.”

“There is both good and bad. The mountain is retaken,” the Ranger said, nodding to the serving boy who set down their bowls and a loaf of brown bread. Bas' heart soared. “But Laketown burned before the dragon fell and sank most of it. The people removed to the ruins near Durin's Gate for the winter. Then the battle began.”

“Battle?” Bas barked. “Between what forces?”

“Dain Ironfoot and your own men, for the Dwarves,” the Ranger said between spoons of stew. “And Thranduil's elves and the men of Laketown, such as they were. At first they battered each other a good bit, but the orcs reportedly came at midday and lay into all four forces together. It was a bloody day for the house of Thorin Oakenshield, but the orcs were thrown down eventually. The king and his nephews are laid to rest beneath his mountain. Dain Ironfoot is now the King of Durin's folk, but your home is secured.”

“The king... and his nephews? All?”

“So I was told,” the Ranger said, his stew gone and the loaf rapidly disappearing. Bas found she had no appetite and pushed her bowl away.

“Which is your husband that I might send your love if another patrol goes east?” the Ranger asked.

“It matters not,” she snapped, rising and drawing up her hood before she turned to go. “My king is dead.”

The trip back to the stronghold was long, weighed down as she was by her grief. Long after nightfall, Bas made her way back to her quarters, wearied to the bone.

“I've been worried SICK!” Dis barked as the door opened. She stopped when she saw Bas' face. “You went to the Men,” she said. “You have news. It's bad.”

Bas could only nod.

“They have failed?”

“I spoke to a Ranger. The mountain is regained,” Bas said woodenly. “Our home is restored.”

“Who has fallen?” Dis barked, panic rising in her voice.

“Only three,” Bas managed to say, handing Dis into a chair. The thought of saying the words made Bas want to vomit. Her tears ran unchecked as she tried to gather her wits, frightening Dis still further.

“Bas! Tell me! Who? Gloin?”

Bas shook her head and pulled out a chair of her own, sinking heavily into it. She could not look at her friend. “All three, Dis,” she choked. “Fili, and Kili... and your brother. All three.”

“No,” Dis snarled, leaping up in a rage. “No! Your Ranger lied to make us quit the halls and come pillage whatever we leave behind. Mahal could not be so cruel!”

“Orcs, Dis,” Bas replied. “They were beset by orcs. Dain Ironfoot came to their aid and lost many. We lost only those three. The most important three.” As the last hope that remained in denial slipped away, Dis wailed and fell to her knees.

Their noise brought Gimli from his chamber, alarmed and demanding answers. In a wooden monotone, Bas told her son that his heroes were dead, and asked him to spread the word that the Princess would address their people in the main hall on the morrow.

He left after a solemn kiss on her cheek and a hug she did not expect. “But Father is alive, and Uncle, and Balin and Dwalin. So there is good news too.”

Bas let the remark go unanswered, and got shakily to her feet. Dis would need tea.

~*~

The next morning it was decided that they would prepare to leave. Their king's last wish, and last valiant actions, had been to see to it that Durin's Folk would live in their mountain once again. They would not dishonor him by lingering in the west.

A few of the oldest and youngest or those who were ill would stay behind until summer, when the journey was safest, but Dis and the bulk of their folk would depart at the first sign of thaw.

And Bas was going with them.

“You are foolish,” Dis declared for the hundredth time as they packed and checked parcels and shifted loads. “You have two months, while the journey will take three months, minimum? You would risk losing her to show her to her father two months early?”

“Yes,” Bas said simply. “If I could fly, I would already be at the Mountain.” Or dead beneath it, she thought. At that the baby kicked and she shook herself out of her gloomy thoughts for the hundredth time that day.

“Pregnancy has driven you mad,” Dis declared. “I could order you to stay.” The threat was not an idle one, but Bas ignored it anyway.

And as predicted, Bas' “year and a day” pregnancy ended on the journey as they camped somewhere outside the Greenwood. It was, as suspected, a girl, and healthy besides, with a head of dark curls and very strong opinions, even at mere hours old.

Bas had already ridden most of the way in the back of a cart, so after a three day rest for her and the ponies, she resumed her position with her daughter in her lap. For miles and miles, she studied the little child's face, her own features set in a mask of studied nonchalance. One by one in her mind, she compared the tiny features to her husband and her son, and then to Thorin and Dis, looking for similarities or differences. The baby had her chin with the stubborn set to it, and her tiny ears. But the line of her nose was not Gloin's, nor was it Bas' own, and her top lip was different.

In a few days, Bas was certain, though of course she said nothing. It had taken that long for her daughter to realize her eyelids could stay open for a second or two at a time as she suckled and she'd finally looked up into her mother's face.

Her watery, unfocused new baby eyes were glacier blue. Just like her father's. Bas forced herself to remain calm, so her weeping didn't interrupt the baby as she ate. They were in a dangerous enough spot that extra noise was ill advised, but telling that to a hungry infant would do no good what so ever.

So Bas and her baby stayed in the back of their cart for a week, jouncing and bumping over stones and roots and ruts, until she felt healed enough to walk now and then, carrying the baby in a sling across her chest. And if anyone noticed that she still wept at night while the baby slept beside her in the blankets and Gimli camped nearby, they said nothing. The weight of guilt and grief was too heavy to bear alone, and yet it was what was required, so it is what Bas did.

Relations between Bas and Dis had been strained for much of the journey, mostly out of worry on Dis' part, but after the birth, Bas had simply shut her friend out completely. Dis had been grieving too, in the same private ways as her friend, though neither spoke to the other of it. The day they finally approached the Mountain changed all that.

“May I sit with you?” Dis asked during a rest break, peering into the nest of blankets beside Bas with a weary smile. Bas nodded.

“I have not seen her since I caught her,” Dis said. “She looks well.”

Bas nodded. “Eats well. Fills plenty of diapers already.”

“And you?” Dis asked.

“No full diapers yet,” Bas said wryly. Dis rolled her eyes. “I'm well enough, given circumstances.”

“It has been a long journey,” Dis said, her eyes on the mountain.

“In many ways,” Bas agreed.

“But, we've picked up wonderful company along the way,” Dis continued in a silly voice, chucking the baby under her chin. “We certainly have. A glittering little ruby, just like her mama, came to join us along side the road. You sure did,” she cooed.

Whether in response to the unfamiliar voice or the touch, Bas couldn't tell, but the baby opened her eyes at that moment and Dis fell into stunned silence.

“Those are Fili's eyes,” Dis said quietly, her complexion ashen. Her gaze was all accusation and betrayal when she met Bas'. “My son's... or my brother's.”

Bas said nothing-- what was there to say?-- but set her jaw and raised it a notch, catching her tongue between her teeth. She would not weep. Not now. Not over this.

“Thorin?” Dis asked, pieces flying together in her memory like a gathering flock of birds. “Before he left... You were in the corridor first, fully dressed. I thought he had simply woken you first.”

Bas picked up her daughter and held her to her chest out of the wind. Her expression didn't change.

“And I suppose he had,” Dis said softly before clambering out of the cart.

That night as they camped, Dis came to her again, a sober look on her face. “I can't protect you much,” she began, sitting beside Bas on the gate of the cart.

“With Dain living so close, I will have less control over our mountain than I would have otherwise. But, her face proves it. The line lives on. Technically she supersedes me, being my brother's only natural issue, but since she's an infant... Here is what I propose. And, hear me out completely before you rave or curse or deny anything. But I hope that you love me enough not to lie to me, regardless of what you've kept from me before.”

“The way that I see working best is for me, as the Princess and last of the line, to accept her as my natural heir, my own... my own being lost. This is the only way I can hope to pass her title to her upon my death. In the mean time, you will settle things with Gloin in whatever way he sees fit. I will not expect you to live together, given the nature of the problem. He deserves a modicum of privacy, all things considered. Separate living space can be arranged, for all three of you, should Gimli wish it. They will, of course, retain all of their rights and properties inherited from Groin. But this little one will become mine in name, and we will raise her here, or in the Blue Mountains, wherever we decide she is safest. And when I pass on, she shall become the princess she was born to be.”

Dis laid her hand on Bas' arm and squeezed. “All other paths lead to much, much worse. Exile. Fostering her to Dain. Leaving her at Gloin's mercy. And I know what it is to lose nearly everyone you have ever loved in one horrendous day. I would spare you that, too.”

“You may chose to retain your pride, or you may chose to protect your children. I cannot tell you which I would do... But I would not see my niece suffer while there is a way for me to prevent it.”

Bas sat in stunned silence for a long moment.

“Then... you forgive me?”

“What do I have to forgive? You saved a piece of my brother. The only one left. I am surprised, I cannot deny that... but I am grateful to have her.”

Clinging to the infant in her arms, Bas curled in on herself, shuddering with repressed sobs. “He never told me,” she whispered for only Dis to hear. “Until it was too late. But then I would have risen above you, as Queen, and you were always better suited to managing people... But mostly I simply didn't know.”

“He was shy, when all was said and done,” Dis agreed. “Shy and devoted to the clan above himself, at all costs, even as bold and proud as he was as a warrior.”

“He was gentle,” Bas confessed. “I think it was his true nature to be, not the warrior or the armorer, but the harper. He was just... forced into the seat by his birth and that dragon.”

“Revenge makes men cruel,” Dis agreed, then winced at the wound her words had struck.

“What will Gloin do?” Bas asked.

Dis could only shake her head and shrug. “You know him best.”

Bas looked down at the baby dozing against her breast bone. “But not nearly so well as he deserves.”

“Have you been thinking of names?” Dis asked, forcing a smile and shaking her head. Time for a change of subject.

“Yes.”

“Family names?” Dis asked, sounding hopeful.

“Yes.”

“Your mother would be pleased,” Dis concluded, smoothing Bas' hair away from her sticky face.

“Would she?” Bas asked as Dis climbed down from the cart. Her friend-- and now protector-- did not seem to hear.


	8. T.A. 2942, an afternoon in May

Bas was on foot with the little one in her sling when they approached the ruined Human city. She walked slowly, as much to avoid jostling the baby as to rest her own weary back and legs. Thus it was easy for a child from the Man city to catch up with her and peer curiously over her shoulder.

“That's very new,” the girl said.

Bas nodded and kept walking.

“Is it a him or a her?”

“This is my daughter,” Bas said, surprised to hear herself sound so proud.

“She's cute. Looks like a regular baby,” the girl said, twisting one of her dirty blonde braids around her finger. “My brother tried to tell me dwarfs don't have babies because none of you are girls. He says you just find more dwarfs while you dig your tunnels and send them up to the top on top of the gold and jewels you dig up, but I said that's silly cause all people start as babies and all babies have to have parents.”

Bas almost-- almost-- laughed at the thought of mining babies. What a came of 'pass the coal' that could make!

“All babies have parents,” Bas agreed. “Even dwarves.” Still, the human child would not leave.

“Are you coming to pray to that big opal the dead king wanted? My brother says dwarfs do that too, worship their pretty jewels and gold like they're the stars.”

“The Arkenstone?” Bas asked.

“Aye, that's what Pa called it. Arkenstone. He seed it before the war. Said it's an opal almost as big as his hand, all glittery with all the colors in the whole world inside it at once. But you don't think it's a star do you? And pray to it for good weather or whatever dwarfs need?”

“No, we don't worship gems. What is your word for it, the gem your father saw?” Bas asked.

“Oh, we call it an opal, but I don't know why. Wha'dyou call it?” the child asked, her brown eyes bright with curiosity.

“I cannot tell you that,” Bas said, shifting the baby to her other arm. “The word is in our language, and we only teach it to our children.”

“So you can talk about the humans in front of us and we don't know what you're saying? Or put spells on people who try to cheat you in trades?” the girl asked.

“I'm sure there are some that do. I don't usually talk to humans,” Bas said, stopping at the edge of the path. “Aren't you far enough from home? Your father will worry.”

“You're interesting,” the girl told her. “But Pa said not to ever go up the mountain with a dwarf, cause I might never come back home. So I guess I should go. But, can I ask one more thing? Just one?”

Bas took a weary breath. “One more question, if I can answer it.”

“Are you going to be the Queen Under the Mountain?” When Bas didn't answer, she continued. “It's just that, the King Under the Mountain and his nephews is dead, and you looked so sad, I thought maybe you were their mother or something, and that'd make you the Queen, wouldn't it?”

Would that it were so simple, little one, Bas thought.

“There won't be a queen under the mountain, but the King's sister is come, so there is a princess, if the other Dwarf king lets her keep the title. If not, then there might be a different King and Queen Under the Mountain. We don't know yet.”

“So there ARE dwarf queens! I knew it! My brother's full of horse apples, just like I said. Thank you, milady,” the child piped, and dipped a wobbly curtsy before she ran away.

A few feet behind her, Bas heard Dis snort with laughter.

“You handled that well Sister,” Dis said quietly.

“Sister? You've known me for 176 years and never once have you called me that.”

Dis was silent a long time. “I guess now I've had some time to think, and I've come to think of you as Thorin's wife, since it turns out both of your hearts lay in that direction in spite of all. Surely it was a possibility once. But I won't say it again if it brings you pain.”

It was Bas' turn to be quiet. “No. It doesn't bother me.”

Their approach to the front gates-- or what was left of them-- took the rest of that afternoon. Dis took Bas' arm as they finished the last rise. She was wilting, and quickly. Dain stood at the doors, Thorin's men behind him, to welcome them to their home, but Dis ushered Bas past them as though they were carved of stone themselves and found a conveniently placed piece of masonry from the rebuilding to deposit Bas before turning back to their king.

“My apologies, King Dain. Gloin's wife is understandably somewhat ill.”

“So I see,” the King said, peering past his cousin to where Gloin kissed his son on both cheeks and stooped down to see his wife and the bundle she carried. “Did he not know?” Dain asked, seeing the shock on Gloin's face when he realized the bundle was, in fact, a child.

“We had no way to send word once they had left the Shire,” Dis explained, nodding in turn to her brother's men. Dain's chatter served as a good distraction from the tears and pity on their battered faces. She only stopped for Ori, sensitive lad that he was, and patted him on the shoulder affectionately. He was a good apprentice in the accounting offices. “I'm glad you are well, my dear lad. I have missed you.”

At her admission, Ori burst into indelicate tears and clasped her in his arms, sobbing. “I'm so sorry milady!”

Beside them, Gloin presented a stiff, formal bow. “It is good to see you, milady. At your first convenience, I must speak with you about the matter of...”

“Yes, the baby,” Dis said smiling brightly. “She is a great blessing to us Gloin. We shall discuss the situation in full later. First, we should find accommodations for everyone, should we not, Highness?” she asked, turning to Dain.

“Don' ask me, it's your mountain!” Dain said, waving a hand toward the interior. “I just had my whole rooms redone off to the east. I've no intention of tossing you out on your delightful little tail, Lassie.”

“While I'm glad to hear that, King Dain,” Dis said as Bas joined them silently, “I must confess that I don't recall my youngest days living here in the least and have no idea where we should be going.”

“Ah, right then. I forgot you were a wee thing when this business all started. We'll have some lads take the bags and goods down to the cellars, then, and you can go with your folk here to get settled. I've my own people in a different bit of it. What ye call them, wings? But, we'll get you settled into the parts your brother's men have been using and then see about a meal for us all. Sound right?”

At Dis' nod, Dain waved toward the people still hiking up the hill to the doors and sent a few of his own men to take their burdens and speed the process. Then he turned to Bas and the baby.

“And here's a wee treasure found on the trip east we're all glad of seeing. Yes, we surely are. What a round little face you have, wee one,” Dain babbled, stroking the baby's silky curls.

“My heir,” Dis proclaimed, stroking the baby's back with just the right mix of affection and possession.

“Is she now?” Dain asked, surprised. “Well, I suppose it makes sense, given the circumstances, but... you don't plan to remarry at all?”

“I'm nearly 180 years old, Dain. I should be a grandmother by now, not a wife with a young baby. She'll do the job well, and we'll see that she marries well and strengthens-- her house. Strengthens her house with healthy babies and good common sense.”

“Lass, I tell you, you might have to go south and start looking now for a young lad with good common sense to have hope of finding her one when the time comes. Even us old codgers run light of that most of the time, don't we Gloin?” Dain joked, not realizing what else he could be referencing.

“I wouldn't know, widowed for as long as I've been,” Dis added quickly. “Now then, about the lodging.”

~*~

“I thank you for telling me right out, the moment you could,” Gloin said when they were finally alone in his quarters. Gimli had run off to find Ori and coax stories of the journey out of his friend, leaving his parents alone. It was needed, but Bas dreaded it all the same.

“I could do no less,” Bas replied. “It is... a great privilege for our daughter, and a generous offer from Dis.”

Dread was written all over Gloin's face. Here came the question she did not want to answer.

“And... how'd she get Dis' eyes, do you figure?” Bas only held the baby tighter in reply.

“There've never been blue eyes in my family. Nor in yours that I recall. And you have to get them from one of your parents or grandparents having them, that's a known fact.”

“Now Dis, she has those ice blue eyes. Turned many a head with them as we grew up, as well you know. And Fili, well, he had them from her, as follows. Then of course there was Thorin.”

At the sound of the name Bas set her jaw.

“So it wasn't the lad then,” Gloin said quietly, studying her. “It was him. The king. Truth be told I almost hoped it had been Fili. At least then I'd have age to explain it. But I see it was what I feared, not what I hoped.”

Bas bit down on her tongue, willing herself not to cry. She was so infernally sick of crying. And it would upset the baby.

“I didn't realize it was so important to you. Having another, I mean,” Gloin said. “Maybe you tried to tell me and I just didn't listen. And a girl this time.” Gloin smiled in the saddest way Bas had ever seen. “She has your stubborn little chin. He would be proud.”

Bas found herself weighing the benefits of full honesty-- she'd been content with Gimli, she'd never considered having another child or going to those lengths to do it, it had been a long standing regret and she'd been weak-- but the blow to Gloin's pride might be too much, to think that the goal hadn't, in fact, been the quest for a daughter but that her heart had never really been his. Bas didn't even know if that were true. She was so wrapped up in knots about everything...

No, she decided. Don't tear his heart out and unman him any worse than you already have.

“Did you love me? Ever?” Gloin asked as he sat a foot or so away from her on the bed.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “As well as I could. And do, for whatever that's worth to you now.”

Gloin's eyes narrowed. “So this wasn't about saving the royal line? I really always did share you.”

“No. Never. Wait, let me...”

“I didn't mean that. Gimli's mine, that's as plain as the nose on my face,” Gloin said, frustrated. “I mean in your heart. He always had a piece of it, even though he'd never tried to win it, didn't he?”

If it weren't for the child in her arms, Bas would have gone screaming into the corridor and down to the tombs to weep herself into exhaustion and pray to fade as the elves did when their hearts were broken.

But the dwarves were not so lucky as to have such an easy escape.

“I did not want any one else who came calling, at the time, and I didn't realize there could have been anyone else until years after we were married. And what was I to do then?”

Gloin watched her closely as she spoke, eyes flicking to the baby and back to him, but lingering mostly on the baby.

“Thorin could not have put it aside only to take you for himself,” Gloin nodded. “Thank you for not killing me in the intercessory years,” he said, nudging her with his elbow. His attempt at a joke fell flat.

“Better me than you, if it came to that,” she said. “You are a good father. Gimli would have done well even without me.”

Gloin risked putting his arm around Bas' shoulders. “But I wouldn't have,” he said honestly. “And if I'd been a better man, I would have realized long before that you were better suited for someone else.”

“The past is done,” she said, rocking the baby to still her fussing. “I cannot fix this. Any of it.”

“Always forward,” Gloin sighed, moving away. “Can I not have even a minute to mourn what was? I've only just found out I had a daughter that's not my daughter, that my wife never truly loved me, and wishes herself dead rather than sitting beside me in our ancestral home with a darling wee lass depending on us to carry on her father's good name until it's time she comes into her own. That's a lot for a man to swallow all at once, and after you've heard how this trip went, you'll appreciate the sentiments behind that appropriately.”

“I would not see you unhappy for all the gold and gems under this mountain or any other,” he said finally. “So, what would you have me do? Dain could... unmarry us, somehow, if we can sort a way of keeping Gimli my son and heir for Oin. Your father's title and money would keep you, most likely, and you'll have Dis' help, I'm sure. I'd even, all things considered, stand aside if they wanted to name you his widow, if it would make you happy.” Gloin's eyes watered, but he still made the offer.

She cursed herself as the most horrible person that had ever dwelt under the mountain for even considering it.

Bas shook her head. “That could illegitimatize Gimli. He shouldn't have to suffer because his mother is a fool.”

“Though it sounds as though he'll suffer anyway if both his parents insist on calling themselves fools,” Gloin countered. “It wasn't your fault you didn't know. Leave it at that, for your girl's sake.”

Something about the way he said “it wasn't your fault” made her stop.

“Whose fault was it?” she asked quietly. Gloin closed his eyes and drew a slow breath, and she knew.

“He wrote a song-- for harp-- and left it tucked into your door one evening. I came by, just to plague you mostly, and found it.”

Don't scream in front of the baby, Bas told herself. Rage like this isn't good for her at this age. She can't understand it. She'll be frightened.

“I knew I couldn't compete with him,” Gloin finished. “So, I took it.”

The image of Thorin's confusion and hope that night a year before flashed through her mind, and she very carefully set her daughter aside, propping her in place with the pillows from the bed. Then she stood, her hands knotted into fists at her sides.

“I guess I was merely the prize then,” she said as softly as a gathering thunderstorm. “I made the only choice I was given.”

“Bas, I'm-”

'Flinty' didn't begin to describe the look she aimed at Gloin. Bas drew a deep breath, wondering if this was how the dragon had felt when Master Baggins had first put his hairy foot into the Great Hall, but a coo from the bed stopped the truth in her mouth. She paused, regrouped, and began again.

“In payment for eighty-five stolen years,” she snapped, her voice nearly dripping venom, “you will get a son and heir. Gimli will live with you in your quarters here or in the Blue Mountains unless he decides he should prefer a place of his own. Should he wish my help in finding a wife, I will of course be happy to give it, as his loving mother. He should not suffer for this... betrayal.”

She paused for a breath and continued, “Once a week I will visit your chambers while you are elsewhere and see to it that your basic household needs are taken care of. Laundry, a weekly cleaning, any mending of clothing or linens that needs done, and a cooked meal; these I will see to so that my son has a safe and clean home. He will be allowed to visit me at any time and for any reason he sees fit without interference from you or his uncle, save that he must perform all duties required as heir to you both.”

“And for my part, after this, I am free of any further obligations to you, save those I see fit to offer in advance. Thus if you fall ill, I may offer to visit your chambers more than once a week to see to a meal or cleaning as needed, for example. You do not have to allow me to do so, and I would hope that in case of dire need, you or our son would ask for my help if it is needed. Outside of that, my affairs will be my own from this point forward. I will raise my daughter as I see fit. You are as welcome to interact with her as any other man in this settlement, insofar as she is always safe and treasured as the precious child that she is, even though she is not of your issue. I will do my best to remain on amicable terms with you for the sake of my son. As I once promised to love and care for you until your death, I intend to maintain that promise insofar as it does not jeopardize my health and sanity any further. We will meet once a year in a neutral location to discuss matters of Gimli's care and well-being, since he is also the heir to my house, as well as address any changes either should like to see in this arrangement. Do these seem like fair terms?”

“You are generous to offer your time in that way,” Gloin said after a long and very awkward pause.

“I don't break my word lightly,” she declared, finally unclenching her fists. Deep within, she still wished she, too, could spit fire, but it would do no good. Not now.

“I suppose we should explain the situation to Dain next?” he asked, looking helplessly at the child on his bed.

“Dis first,” Bas said firmly. “There is the matter of the baby's sponsorship and inheritance to discuss, and she will want to speak to you about it as well. I think... with only the small bits of the story she had, I think she was willing to entertain the idea of you adopting the baby as your own.”

“She was?” Gloin said with a tinge of hope in his voice. “I would. It would be an honor to raise Thorin's daughter.”

Scooping the child out of her pile of pillows, Bas propped the baby on her shoulder, her back to Gloin, and reached for the door.

“It is.”


	9. T.A. 2942, the evening and the end

Separate chambers for Bas and the baby were readied next to Dis' own, and from Mahal himself could only know where, a cradle was procured and padded with a feather pillow and plenty of blankets.

When he was done catching up with his friend, Gimli came to her rooms. Bas was unpacking.

“His Highness had the Dragon Sickness, before he died, Ori says. But at the last moment during a lull in the Battle, he miraculously came out of it and lead a charge to defend Dain and drive back the orcs.”

“I would have expected no less from our king. Have you been to the burial chamber?”

Gimli shook his head. “I thought we should all go together, at least at first. Princess Dis will need the company, will she not?”

Bas smiled. Her son was growing into a fine young man. “We shall ask,” Bas told him, handing him the baby so she could move the cradle in her search through their trunks for a box of Gloin's. He thought the song was still folded up and tucked into the bottom of it.

Pray she had packed it. The trip back to Eriador would be a long one.

“None of Father's things are here yet,” Gimli said, patting his sister on the back like she'd shown him.

“Your father is already in satisfactory quarters,” Bas said carefully. “And you may stay there with the other men if you wish. It will be easier for me to stay here with the baby. We are nearer Dis and the kitchens, and the bathing chambers.”

Gimli looked at her very seriously for a moment, as though debating whether or not to speak. Bas saved him the trouble.

“Your father and I are going to be living apart. Things have been said and done that you can't entirely understand yet, but suffice to say, we both got caught up in being dishonest about very important things, and it changes how we look at each other. It would be hard to try to live together without arguing, which isn't good for anyone, and the baby and I need peace and quiet while she gets used to the world and our routines.”

“He found out that you loved King Thorin,” Gimli said, rocking his sister gently to still her fussing.

“That is part of it,” she said simply.

“And you... don't love him?”

“For many years I didn't love him as well as I thought he deserved. But it turns out there were decisions haunting your father, too, that changed more than just whether he is worth loving or not. Right now, I don't want you, or anyone else under the mountain, to hear us arguing and possibly saying things you should never hear one parent say about the other. But I've arranged that you may choose to live with your father or with me, or even take rooms of your own if you would like. You are old enough to make your own decision in the matter, and I trust your judgment... most of the time.”

Gimli smiled. “Ori asked if I'd like to bunk with him for a short while. Says he has trouble sleeping some nights and he'd like to have someone who wasn't here for the worst of it to talk to about other things. I think I could help him, at least for a while.”

“Very well, then. You should let your father know,” Bas said, and handed him the small wooden chest she had found in the bottom of the third trunk she'd packed. “Gloin needs this as well, when you go to him.”

“If I live somewhere else,” Gimli began, “how will I see the baby?”

“By asking where your sister is and going and spoiling her rotten with cuddling and toys and pony-back rides if I know you at all,” Bas teased.

“I'm just excited,” he said sheepishly. “I didn't think I would get to be an older brother.”

“I'm glad you're pleased,” Bas replied. “You can take her with you for a short time if you're on the way to your father's. But, be prepared, everyone you pass will stop you to see her and remark at how pretty she is and how you have the same chin.”

“I can? Really?”

“What do you think I would worry about, you feeding her to a warg?” Bas chuckled.

“Give her to King Dain so he can teach her to ride pigs and split firewood with her forehead?” Gimli teased.

“She'll have to learn to hold her own head up first,” Bas reminded him, and kissed each of her children in turn. She took the opportunity to get an arm around her son and hug him, too. “Thank you for trying to understand about your father and I. I think it will do him good to talk with you about it too.” Gimli nodded, leaning into her shoulder for a moment. “How did you know...”

“About the king?” Gimli finished. “You looked at him differently. There would be a moment, but just briefly, when you looked like you do when I've done something exceptionally well, and then it would go away again. You don't look at Father that way. But I know you like him, and you take care of him, and I don't think any of this is my fault.”

“No!” Bas said, hugging him tighter. “Not at all. Some of it goes back to before your father and I had even married, and none of it is more important than you.”

“It's still sad,” he said finally. “All of it. You and Father. Thorin's death. Fili and Kili.” Bas was close enough to see her son's eyes fill.

“It is. But, none of them started this journey without knowing it was possible that they would not see the end of it,” Bas said. “And they chose the risk to see to it that you, and now your sister and dozens like her, will grow up prosperous and healthy. So, we have been left without people we care about. We can't help being sad, but we shouldn't get bogged down in it. Or, at least, not for long. We would not still be the people they made the sacrifice for if we wallow too long or grow too bitter.”

Snuffling into his sleeve, Gimli nodded. Bas kissed him on the head again and tugged a little at his beard. “You'll have to start braiding this soon or you'll wear more food than you eat.”

Gimli flushed. “Mother!”

“What? How am I ever supposed to get you married if you smell like yesterday's soup?” she teased. Her son rolled his eyes and picked up the box she'd found.

“I love you too, Mama. We'll go and take this to Father.”

While they were occupied, Bas flaked a layer of dust off of her clothes and went to the burial chamber. It was a trip she had to take on her own, and without anyone's knowledge. There was simply too much to say and likely no other way to say it but with tears.

~*~

Dis stood in for Thorin in the child's naming day. Irregular, but Dain had no interest in it once the setting aside of the marriage had been done. “They're your people, Lassie,” he had told Dis affectionately. “You're doing as you think is best for them. I'll just get in the way.” And since a dwarf's true name is known only to herself and a few close relatives, Dis' tears at announcing the child's legitimacy were genuine.

After all, Bas had two grandmothers from whom to chose names. It seemed better to name her after the paternal side.

“Among our people,” Dis announced, concluding, “she is Thris, and in the common tongue of Dale, she may be called Opal, for the precious jewel of our mountain's heart.”

The baby's welcome rang from the high buttresses of the hall as the dwarves who arrived day by day celebrated this first great joy within their reclaimed home. Drums and flutes struck up-- Ori among them, his cheeks wet with tears-- and then a viol, which cut at Dis' heart like an elf blade.

Bas handed over Thris for her aunt to introduce around the hall as platters of roast pork and quail passed down the tables, and ale was brought in pitchers from barrels to the side. Filling a plate from a passing serving boy, she seated herself in a cushioned chair near the dias, her back to a pillar. One of the new dwarves from the Iron Hills rolled a heavy case toward the musicians and withdrew a carved harp from its depths, tuning it with infinite gentleness.

She thought of Thorin, in his chamber below them, buried with a sword and a stone like a warrior, but unlike the man she loved. In her chambers, at the foot of her bed, another case sat waiting. Thris might take to the instrument one day, or like Bas, to singing and the dance. Or she might go her own way and take up the viol or the drum. There was no way to say. Healthy, named, and being introduced to her future subjects now, Bas had increasingly less say over how her daughter would live and grow. Thris was more than an infant. She was a promise of hope for her people, even now, confused about how one manages to gum one's foot when said appendage was so unruly about staying in one's mouth.

For the last time in her life, Bas found herself wondering at the place of a Dwarf woman who has no children of her own. The fact that she wondered such at a naming feast while Dis walked her young heir around the room was not lost on Bas at all.

Life had a funny way of rounding itself out, it seemed. Perhaps it was not so crystalline after all.

But unlike that musical night eighty-odd years before that had ultimately been the beginning of the end, Bas rose from her seat, set aside her roast quail and good brown bread and mead, stretched her sore back and shoulders, and left the hall alone.

The stairs to the burial chamber were slick in spots. Bas knew them all already, and avoided them without thinking. The case made a hollow sound as she set it on the stone floor, and the snick of the latches echoed against the stone walls and the crypt before her. Someone had left a cushion nearby-- probably Dis, or maybe Gimli-- and she used it to prop her back against the gleaming marble of his coffin.

“Hello my darling,” she said, removing the harp from its case and unfolding a worn piece of parchment scratched with notes. “I'm here to try again.”

Bas ran a finger across the top of the sheet, where a line of fine, fluid script stood out almost as dark as it had been the day it was put down, as though untouched by time. She had read the line a thousand times, and never failed to hear it in his voice.

“I cannot put words to this tune that haunts my dreams. Finish it with me?”

She would spend the rest of her days under the Lonely Mountain-- and truly, for her, it had earned the title-- visiting her love and caring for their daughter. Thris grew quickly and strong. She looked to turn out taller than her mother, and had Bas' stubborn streak, with the merest hints of copper in her dark curls. She took up the flute, and the dance, and the hammer, and surprisingly, was a fair shot with a bow. She grew up quiet and proud and confident, the image of her father in his highest days.

And it was Thris who, seeking her mother one evening after one final war against evil was fought and won, found her sleeping beside her father's sepulcher for the last time, her harp in her lap, her hands still, her lips turned up in a peaceful smile.


	10. Author's notes and filling up the corners.

Blame Robinka that this story began as an exercise in shorter-winded "plot, what plot?" and turned into the two month, daily obsession you have read here. Many thanks go to my constant cheerleader and friend, though I suspect, seeing the extensions made to this story, she will be somewhat surprised.

This piece was remarkably influenced by music (thanks, Pandora!), including general tunes by violinist Natalie McMaster, the Irish folk ballad Siuil a Run (Go, My Love), the traditional Scots/Irish/Appalachian folk tune The Water is Wide, and the score from the feature film "The Last of the Mohicans" starring Daniel Day-Lewis, especially "Promontory" and the main theme (itself an adaptation of "The Gael" by Dougie MacLean). I suppose I should actually watch the film now, considering I live an hour's drive from the Finger Lakes, eh?

So, thanks to all the research I had to do to satisfy my own head canon, the stunning images from Peter Jackson's The Hobbit film trilogy, and what is *actually* the Professor's canon for Durin's Folk simultaneously, some clarifications follow below. I was both lucky and unlucky that dates of birth and death were established for most of the canon characters. Lucky, in that having the dates removes much of the guesswork re: ages and spans between events, but unlucky in that fitting my story in between the stones already laid there took considerably more flexibility than I'm used to using.

In the first chapter, we are in 2856, about the middle of the building times of Thorin's reign. His father had been captured and eventually died in Dol Guldur, after giving Gandalf the map and key. Wandering dwarves from all over Middle-earth migrated to Eriador to take up residence in the stronghold, probably in or near the ruins of Belegost, in the Blue Mountains.

In all subsequent chapters, we are in TA 2941 and beyond; Thorin is 195 years old at the beginning of chapter 2 and was 53 when he earned the name Oakenshield in 2799. The tribe moved to Eriador shortly thereafter.

Bas was married in 2856 and born in 2760 months apart from Thorin's younger sister Dis (180), making her 10 years old when the dragon took the mountain in 2770. Fili was born in 2859 (83 years old), Kili in 2864 (78 years old) , and Gimli in 2879 (62). For practical reasons, I've had to assume that dwarves under 100 mature mentally and emotionally as though they're humans at ¼ to 1/3 the age. At 62, Gimli is practically speaking the equivalent of a 16-18 year old human. As they near and then pass the age of 100, though, that slow maturity rate reverses, and they universally age more quickly near the ends of their lives. 250 is given as the expected lifespan of the average dwarf. I've taken the liberty of mentioning at least one outlier who is nearing 300, a thing not unheard up in the oldest families like the Longbeards.

Not much is known of dwarven reproduction, so I have taken the liberty of attributing the scarcity of females to a recessively-inherited genetic anomaly of some sort, similar to Tay-Sachs, but affecting clotting and/or immune responses. Pregnancies in general are hard, but notably harder when the dwarvess is carrying a girl, making determining the sex of the child somewhat easy to guess midway through a year-and-a-day long pregnancy. (The time frame chosen simply for the traditional weight placed on that particular timespan.)

To satisfy my desire to stay “canon plausible” in this, I suspect Mahal, being a maker but not a grower, did not fully draft out the idea of women among the dwarves, and as such it is a flaw in their basic design that makes pregnancy so treacherous. Like a car with after-market components, sometimes necessary improvements don't go according to plan. A severe case of this disorder would render the dwarvess infertile and could contribute to an impressive growth of facial hair, giving rise to the confusion about the appearance of dwarf women by outsiders.

This mythical disorder of mine is present in all of the dwarf clans, but some more dominantly than others. The Longbeards are just now, in the last 100 years or so, starting to see it with disturbing frequency. Thorin, seeing his own sister's suffering, is justifiably concerned, and this is secretly part of why he wishes to return 'home' where a healthy trade business also diversified the genepool and kept the disease dormant more frequently. Would he understand genetics and dominant v recessive sex-linked traits? Probably not. Thus, there is more magic to attribute to their gold.

This scarcity also serves to elevate the feminine in Dwarvish culture in an unusual way. Unlike most modern western human cultures, the desired sex of a child among a people facing this situation will more frequently be female. Female children growing up to be healthy and reproduce daughters of their own are a sign of a stable and prosperous kingdom, like many sub-Saharan and Asian cultures have traditionally believed. While the rulers may be universally men, under the Blue Mountains, in Erebor and (I would argue) in the Iron Hills, and eventually (especially!) Aglarond, it is Dwarvish Women who wield the social and political power, bearded or otherwise.

There is nothing in canon about the concept of divorce, but many archaic human cultures allowed it in various ways. Commonly in western Europe and the British Isles, a man could be assumed dead, and thus divorced, if he had not been home in three years or more. We see a hint of this idea of presumptive death based on absence in The Hobbit itself, when poor Bilbo has to walk across half of Middle-earth *again* to keep the Sackville Bagginses from making off with his silver spoons and taking over his smial. In this case, Gloin's refusal to have a second child would, in some cultures, be grounds for divorce. Likewise, his decision to take the journey to the Lonely Mountain could be grounds in some situations, if it could be argued that his death was highly likely to certain.

Likewise, there may be questions of my use of the word "man" when referencing a male dwarf. I've actually touched on this once in a while in elf-based fic. My theory is that our Omnicient POV narrator is helpfully translating for us from Kudzul, and as such the word for "adult male dwarf" in their own tongue would translate most directly and easily into "man".

And finally, yes, I confess-- I am not just a purveyor of ridiculous smut. I am also deeply a romantic at heart.


End file.
